


Three Dances

by DameRuth



Series: Bliss [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: Three people = three relationships. A night out allows each of the Bliss team to reflect on what they see between each other, and how they are connected. Rose/Jack/Nine OT3 fluff.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness/Rose Tyler
Series: Bliss [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/14078
Kudos: 28





	1. Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing the Teaspoon transfer - original posting date 2007.09.18.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief setup.

Jack gazed around the bar, nodding in approval. The Doctor’d been right — this tavern was a nice place. Good, old-fashioned décor — mother-of-pearl inlaid bar, floor a single slab of polished black onyx reflecting the tasteful starfield projected by the holographic ceiling, and comfortable multispecies barstools upholstered in rich synthasuede. The overall impression was of being upscale without pretension.  
  
And their beer was pretty damn good, too.  
  
Rose was looking at everything with bright interest, as was her wont, happily taking in the crowd of humans, humanoids and aliens while munching away on what she’d been assured were standard, if oddly-shaped, pretzels. For some reason, she hadn’t wanted any deep-fried anemone segments — not that Jack was complaining. More for him. He pulled the bowl closer.  
  
The Doctor was ignoring both of them for the moment, in favor of addressing his pint with single-minded pleasure. He said he couldn’t experience the intoxicating effects of ethanol the way humans could unless he was walking the ragged edge of lethal poisoning, but he enjoyed the flavor all the same.  
  
Following Rose’s gaze, Jack could see the telltale signs of furniture being shifted, as people of all types cleared space in the center of the floor, preparing for the evening’s entertainment. Rose could read the intent as clearly as Jack could, and he grinned into his beer as she perked up with growing enthusiasm.  
  
The minute the music started, Rose was on the edge of her seat, practically bouncing up and down with anticipation, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on the Doctor.  
  
Teasing, he managed to ignore her obvious excitement (which was sparkling down their shared link like bright champagne) for a whole ten seconds before he turned to her and raised his eyebrows.  
  
“S’pose you’d like to dance, then?” he asked her, off-handedly, but with a hint of a smile and an undercurrent of amusement in both his voice and his thoughts.  
  
Rose slipped off her barstool and landed lightly on her feet, catching the Doctor’s hand in hers as she did so. “Yes, _please_!” she told him, grinning, and without further ado, began towing him bodily towards the dance floor.  
  
“Blimey,” she continued over her shoulder, “Thought I was gonna’ have to make up a sign and wave it in your face or somethin’ . . .”  
  
The rest of her commentary was lost in the music and chatter of the bar, and Jack grinned after them, able to fill in the basics of the rest for himself, if not the exact words.  



	2. Jack: Fairy Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes magic happens, and fairy tales come true.

Jack swiveled his stool to face out into the room, resting his elbows back against the bar, so he could watch Rose and the Doctor dance.  
  
From the first time he’d seen them together, he’d been struck by how beautifully matched they were, a pair of apparent opposites moving in perfect harmony. They were always watching each other, always aware of the other’s exact location, balancing around some invisible common center. The way they looked at each other, it was like they saw the Soul of the Universe embodied in the form of a rangy, hard-faced Lord of Time, or a sweet-faced young human woman with a blinding smile, respectively.  
  
The pairing was nonsensical, impossible — across the abyss of Time and Space, across gaps of age and culture and species nearly as profound, still these two people had found each other, and held fast through everything they encountered in their tumultuous, wandering existence. Their clasped hands and shared laughter seemed more than a match for anything the world could throw their way.  
  
And then they’d chanced across a certain faux-Captain, and instead of leaving him by the wayside, they’d scooped him up on the run and welcomed him into the rarified, charmed circle of their life.  
  
Before he’d met Rose and the Doctor, Jack had scoffed at the notion of soulmates — or even the lesser concept of True Love — figuring it to be an impossible dream, the product of unrealistic idealism. A pretty fairy tale, nothing more.  
  
Of course, he’d always thought Time Lords were a fairy tale, too. Talk about a double whammy, when he’d encountered both fairy tales in the flesh, at once.  
  
Bemused, Jack had kept his careful distance — and he hadn’t needed the Doctor’s piercing Death Glares to reinforce that distance, either. Once he realized what he’d been seeing between his two traveling companions, he knew it’d be playing with fire to interfere, and Jack Harkness had no desire to be burnt.  
  
All the same, looking in from the outside, Jack had been surprised by the pleasure he’d taken in watching the two of them together. There’d been a sharp, bittersweet delight in seeing that fairy tales _could_ come true, and a sneaking, deep-down longing at the thought that maybe, someday, it could happen to _him_.  
  
He’d known it was unhealthy, basking in their reflected glow like a lonely traveler welcomed out of the night into the light and warmth of someone else’s home. So tempting, to stay — but the longer one was still, the harder it would be to leave again and head back out into the cold darkness, alone.  
  
Yet they’d been so welcoming — more and more as time went on. They’d drawn him ever closer, mothlike, against all his better judgment and survival instincts, and he’d spiraled in, entranced . . . and then, beyond all expectations, suddenly he was part of the fairy tale, too.  
  
It seemed unreal. But there they were, dancing, the Doctor gazing at Rose with a big, happy, goofy grin on his face, and Rose grinning back almost as widely. They were vividly real, absolutely in love, and somehow they were his and he was theirs. The link was fuzzy enough at their current distance to give him no more than a vague hint of their current emotions — nothing the expressions on their faces couldn’t have told him, honestly — but the underlying strength of their connection was solid and undeniable as bedrock.  
  
So why did it feel like he almost had to hold his breath, to keep the bubble from bursting? Fairy gold might look real enough, but take your eyes off it and it was gone . . .  
  
Without looking away from the dancers, Jack felt for his beer and took a sip.  
  
He was just reaching to set the glass back on the bar when a voice at his elbow broke the trance. He managed not to slosh beer around, barely.  
  
“What’s a handsome man like you doing here alone?” asked a throaty alto.  
  
Beer safely settled, Jack turned his head to blink at the handsome brunette who’d snuck up on him.  
  
Very pretty, no older than himself, and at least 80% human-derived, he guessed automatically. The other 20% manifested itself, superficially, in the emerald green eyeshine that sparkled subtly in the depths of her pupils.  
  
Those glimmering pupils widened perceptibly as he met the woman’s gaze, and her smile widened simultaneously. An automatic, answering grin plastered itself across Jack’s face, in a purely spinal reflex.  
  
Once upon a time, this woman would have represented a happy ending for Jack — at least for the night.  
  
But he had a better story, now.  
  
“Sorry,” he said, with all the charm he could muster. He waved a hand at Rose’s and the Doctor’s drinks, still in place on the bar. “I’m not alone.” Then, since there was no need to be rude, he dropped the register of his voice, and purred, “But if I was, you’d’ve been welcome to take care of _that_.” He dropped a sultry wink, and the brunette laughed and moved on, unoffended.  
  
Feeling pleased at how smoothly his rejection had been accepted, Jack reached for his beer again, and turned to face the dancers. He nearly dropped his glass.  
  
Both Rose and the Doctor were still token-dancing, but their attention was now aimed in his direction. Rose was grinning with wicked appreciation. The Doctor, on the other hand, was glowering ferociously. His eyes shifted to track the brunette woman as she wove her way obliviously through the crowd, and the glower blossomed into a full-out Death Glare. _He’s mine,_ that glare said, _so you’d_ better _keep your distance . . ._  
  
Jack automatically sipped his beer, while something deep inside him shivered pleasurably. Not fairy gold, gone by morning, not by a long shot.  
  
The music ended, and the Doctor ducked his head for a brief consultation with Rose. Then he started back to the bar while Rose remained on the dance floor.  
  
Jack didn’t need Rose’s “c’mere” head-jerk to recognize the progression. It was becoming tradition with them, that they danced pairwise in the order in which they’d met — Rose and the Doctor, then Rose and Jack, then Jack and the Doctor. He drained his glass, and slid off the barstool.  
  
In passing, the Doctor gave him a rather grumpy look. “Go on,” he said, hooking a thumb in Rose’s direction, “before that pretty face gets you in trouble.” His voice was a low, gruff growl, but as Jack brushed against him, the link fed an undertone of affection that softened the words.  
  
“Yessir,” Jack murmured in reply, meekly enough, but with his amusement winding clearly down through the link. Then they were past each other, and Rose was taking his hand as she drew him towards her.  
  
She was still grinning. “That’s our sexy Jack,” she told him, nearly laughing. “We can’t take you _anywhere_. . .!”  
  
“Hey, it’s not like I do it on _purpose_ ,” he replied, shrugging helplessly. “It’s just my animal magnetism.”  
  
The next song began, and Rose moved in a little closer as they began to pick up the rhythm. “Animal magnetism, huh?” she asked, her smile quirking as she tried to repress it.  
  
“Yep. Whenever I go outside, squirrels stick to my clothes,” Jack deadpanned, and was rewarded with Rose’s startled, uninhibited laughter.  
  
The sound of it was positively enchanting  



	3. The Doctor: Kinship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Covers some similar ground from previous character analysis pieces of mine ("Parched," etc.), but hopefully offers a refinement of themes, and tailors the viewpoint to the Bliss!verse.

The Doctor settled onto his barstool and sipped his beer, rolling it appreciatively around in his mouth and exhaling slightly through his nose so the volatilized chemicals could slide past his olfactory nerves. This incarnation didn’t have the most sensitive of palates, but he could still appreciate the brewer’s art adequately enough.  
  
Rose, responding to some cheeky comment of Jack’s, threw her head back and laughed, her voice audible over the music and conversation of the bar. The link pulsed momentarily more brightly with her amusement. Jack grinned down at her, pleased with the reception his joke had gotten, as the two of them slipped smoothly into the patterns of the dance.  
  
The easy, animal grace of them was remarkable — they could have been the textbook illustration for “Humans: mated pair.” Evolution had designed them for each other, after all. It was only natural that they should be so closely in tune, to the point it seemed they were always dancing unconsciously to some silent music the Doctor could never hear. That connection was visible in everything they did, whether it was walking down the street together, making tea, dancing, or “dancing.”  
  
So similar, humans and Time Lords. All the Older Races had altered the fabric of reality by their very existence, greatly increasing the probability that subsequent races would evolve into reflections of those who had come before. Of all the Younger Races, humans had absorbed the subtle vibrations of universal imprinting most completely. In physical form, they were a nearly perfect echo of the Time Lords themselves, lacking only timesense (well, and a solid handful of other, related senses) and a few superior internal characteristics.  
  
Needless to say, the Time Lords hadn’t been pleased by Chance and the Universe’s little joke at their expense. Apes, molded into their image — how gauche! Best to ignore them, the inferior, cheeky, violent little things.  
  
At first, the Doctor had agreed. But then he’d seen the species’ potential up close. It was entrancing, and terrifying. Peace and war, kindness and violence, trust and fear, all balanced on a knife’s edge. At their worst, they rivaled the Daleks for cruelty, and at their best they were . . . transcendent.  
  
Fascinated, he’d devoted almost his entire life to studying humans obliquely, seeking their company and taking inspiration from their boundless energy. He even informally appointed himself Humanity’s defender, doing what he could to protect and encourage — if always from a position of superiority.  
  
With humans, though, that aloofness was sometimes hard to maintain.  
  
For centuries, he’d been alternately irritated and flattered by his human friends’ attachments to him. Not that he’d been emotionally isolated — far from it. But at the end of the day they were human, and he was not. Plain, simple Truth. Immutable.  
  
Then came the War. Afterwards, the Doctor was alone — truly alone — and the pain was almost unbearable. His species was gone, and that loneliness was _forever_ no hope of reprieve.  
  
Until he met Rose Tyler. She was everything a human should be — bright and free and joyous, bold and unafraid. She looked at him and accepted him, alien though he was, took his hand and smiled at him without reservation . . . and that was it. Rose stopped being “Rose Tyler, human companion,” and became, simply, Rose. His Rose.  
  
From that moment on, he loved her — deeply, hopelessly, and desperately, as truly as if she’d been one of his own kind.  
  
It was terrible. Wrong in every way. Made even worse by the clear and unavoidable knowledge that she loved him in return. He was old and bitter, the worn-out relic of a world that no longer existed. Whatever his feelings, he was no proper match for a young woman who would eventually want human things he couldn’t give her. He couldn’t be a man of her species, couldn’t be her . . . mate.  
  
Not that he could help himself from acting as if he was. He snapped and snarled and marked his territory for every pretty young human male they came across, up to and including Jack.  
  
Jack, unexpectedly, showed his throat immediately, accepting the Doctor’s claim to Rose without a fight. But if he wasn’t inclined to be a rival, he did choose to become a friend, and in that friendship the Doctor saw the beginning of the end. The other pretty-boys hadn’t really been a threat. Rose saw through them quickly, and was happy to leave them behind (like that useless little weasel, Adam). They had no substance.  
  
Jack was more than a pretty face, though. He had heart and (if properly motivated) courage — and wit and charm and all the things the Doctor himself lacked. Rose was drawn to him, even in friendship, and there was nothing the Doctor could do to stop her.  
  
He couldn’t even blame her, since he knew exactly how she felt. After the barrier had broken once, it was that much easier for it to be breached a second time . . .  
  
Unable to interfere, he watched his two companions growing closer on a daily basis. It was inevitable that they would finally pair off and leave him for a human life together. Once, he would have smiled with avuncular benevolence and been pleased by the outcome. Now though . . . it had been like seeing his world preparing to end all over again. Somehow, mysteriously, it hadn’t, Rose and Jack confounding all of his expectations by their perplexing refusal to become an item.  
  
And then came the link, forming so slowly, almost subliminally. It should never have formed in the first place, but it had.  
  
Once he noticed it, he should have sent Rose and Jack away immediately, but he hadn’t.  
  
When it came to the sticking point, he found himself facing a united front — both his companions regarding him with pure human stubbornness, and their species’ unwillingness to accept _anything_ as being impossible.  
  
Not even A Time Lord could resist such a force. Between them both, Rose and Jack had remade his hearts, his worldview, and his life. More than that, they’d given him something he’d thought was beyond his reach for the rest of Time: a family, and a place to belong.  
  
The music was speeding up as it neared its conclusion, and out on the dance floor, Rose and Jack were following the increased tempo, matched and perfect, that shared human kinship flowing easily between them -- the same kinship they extended so freely to him. Instead of excluding, it included; the very human-ness he’d feared would take them away from him instead bound them to him on the deepest levels possible.  
  
The Doctor set his empty pint glass onto the bar, and watched the resolution of the dance with a slight half-smile. Not all the couples managed to keep up, and several bowed out, but Rose and Jack danced perfectly to the end.  
  
The music cut off abruptly, and the two of them leaned into each other, grinning and gasping, while the gathered patrons watching provided a round of applause for the dancers who’d stayed the course. The Doctor, grinning broadly, added his enthusiastic humanoid hand-clapping to the general tumult of whistles, hoots, and tail-thumping.  
  
On cue, Rose and Jack looked in his direction, and treated him to nearly identical smiles, registering his approval. Then Rose bounced up on tiptoe, gave Jack a quick peck of a kiss on the cheek, and began making her way back to the bar. Time for the next shift in the dance roster.  
  
The Doctor moved to trade places with her, and as they passed, Rose managed to slide gracefully past him, raising herself again on tiptoe to press a light kiss onto the Doctor’s cheek, an exact mirror image of the one she’d given Jack.  
  
As the saying ran, _the truest family is that which we choose for ourselves._  
  
Jack was still breathing heavily when the Doctor reached him.  
  
“Still up for some more dancing, Captain?” the Doctor asked with solicitous mock-concern, unable to avoid tweaking Jack over his lack of (comparative) stamina.  
  
That earned him a challenging glint from Jack’s bright blue eyes, and a trademark crooked grin.  
  
“Always,” was the reply, just as the next round of music began.  



	4. Rose: Fragility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose's viewpoint, finally -- possibly the one least-often articulated, but very clear (in my mind) nonetheless.

Rose gulped beer gratefully. The last, fast dance figures with Jack had definitely gotten her blood moving. This next dance was a slower one, the deejay attempting to even things out.  
  
_Figures, now I’m sitting out,_ Rose thought, wryly but without real disappointment, as she watched Jack and the Doctor. A brief conversation, exchanged grins, and then they quieted as they eased into the music, pulling each other closer.  
  
Rose smiled, and gave a happy sigh, watching them together, seeing all the quiet, understated gestures of affection between them. The Doctor’s eyes were half-lidded, and he wore an expression somewhere between dreamy and stern. Jack, more expressively, was wearing a sweet, relaxed smile. They moved in time to the music for a few steps, and then Jack said something, the smile wider and teasing.  
  
The Doctor was turned away from Rose, so she didn’t see his answering expression, but he slid his hand up from where it had been, in the crook of Jack’s arm. He rested his palm in the angle between Jack’s neck and shoulder, and reached up with his thumb to trace the groove in Jack’s neck, just alongside the trachea, where the major artery ran just beneath the surface — life’s blood under a thin covering of delicate skin.  
  
The teasing grin faded from Jack’s lips as he tilted his head back, arching his neck into the touch, eyes closing.  
  
Rose shivered a little, sympathetically — strictly from the visual image, as the link was stretched somewhat thin and faint with distance — recognizing the significance of the gesture. Trust, the giving and taking of it, were of special importance to both Jack and the Doctor, her two wounded, half-healed men.  
  
Sometimes their need for trust shifted into unfamiliar, even slightly dark, territory, but Rose knew how important that shared understanding was for the two of them, so she did her best to accept it without judgment or concern. It was not something she could comprehend directly -- not having had some of the experiences Jack and the Doctor seemed to have had in common -- but she was glad they could find what they needed to in each other.  
  
The two of them were still moving in time to the music, but their movements had changed into some different dance that they obviously both knew. Rose didn’t recognize it. They shared so many frames of reference unfamiliar to her — next to them she sometimes felt small, and drab, and inexperienced. Not that _they_ made her feel that way; when she was with them, the way they looked at her made her feel like she could move mountains. But when she was alone and had time to think, she felt very . . . mismatched.  
  
After all, out of “Time Lord, nine hundred years old, powerful, magnetic, brilliant,” “Former Time Agent, former soldier, conman extraordinare, suave and gorgeous,” and “twenty years old, had one really disastrous relationship and then worked in a shop for a bit,” she knew which biography didn’t fit.  
  
They were both so wonderful, so amazing . . . The Doctor was everything she'd ever dreamed, and Jack was the friend she'd always wanted without knowing it.  
  
They could talk a mile a minute to each other about technical specifications, or places they’d both been, things they’d both seen, none of which made any sense to her . . . or they could communicate what seemed like volumes without words, with just a tilt of the head, an arched eyebrow or a small hand gesture.  
  
Even deeper, they each understood how the other had been hurt, both by what had been done to them and what they’d had to do — that was clear enough. She knew there were things in both their pasts they hadn’t shared with her, and probably never would . . . as if anything they could tell her would change how she felt. She knew what they both _were_ which was far more important than anything they’d _done_ , but she also knew better than to press them. After all, she wasn’t dying to tell them details about her time with Jimmy, so she could understand that some types of pain were preferentially kept private.  
  
If they wanted to tell her, someday, she’d listen, and do what she could to help. Until then, she’d just . . . love them. That, she could manage, in spades. It seemed little enough, sometimes, but it seemed to help. And they loved her back, which was . . . terrifying.  
  
They were both so closed, so wary, and yet they’d somehow each gifted her with a piece of their hearts, so infinitely precious, so impossibly fragile. She was desperate to be worthy of that trust, and frightened of somehow betraying them with her inexperience. She’d rip out her own heart before she ever hurt one of them consciously, but she’d never intended to shatter the Universe by saving her father, either, and look what had happened _then_.  
  
Rose shivered, and set her glass down on the bar without looking, her attention fixed on Jack and the Doctor, dancing so gracefully. Seeing them together like that filled her with a ferocious protectiveness, a desire to never see them hurt again. Not if she was there to stop it.  
  
That was a laugh — Rose Tyler, protecting _those_ two. But she couldn’t help it; the emotion was deep, and true. Anything that sought to damage them would have to come through her to do it. She shivered again, accepting the feeling, and it made her heart feel full and sore at once. Little enough, probably, but she’d do what she could, oh, yes . . .  
  
Jack and the Doctor were dancing even more closely now, and their motions had gone intimate and supple — a mere breath away from sex standing up, Rose realized with a blink. A heartbeat after that realization, the first wave of sensation hit her through the link. Spreading out from the two men like concentric ripples across the surface of a pond, their shared and broadcast emotions left very little to the imagination.  
  
Rose’s stomach muscles fluttered, echoed by a different set of muscles, placed rather lower down, before she sucked in a steadying breath and forced her conscious mind to start working again.  
  
Taking another breath, she felt a smirk beginning to plaster itself across her face. Well. She could tell where this evening was heading. If they were broadcasting like _that_ loudly enough for her to feel it from across the room, this was the last (public) dance any of them would be sharing tonight.  
  
Tamping down the smirk as best she could, Rose settled up their bar tab. Anymore, she insisted on being given a supply of local currency before they disembarked from the TARDIS, whenever possible. The Doctor was hopeless at keeping track of money, and whatever made its way into Jack’s possession had a tendency to vanish at odd moments if a passing fancy caught Jack’s “easy come, easy go” attention.  
  
That taken care of, she sat back down to watch the show, and it was . . . ooh, lovely. They’d have her nearly as worked up as they were, if they weren’t careful. And “careful” was far from their minds . . .  
  
A thought struck Rose, and she glanced around at the other patrons, surreptitiously. She was experiencing Jack and the Doctor as a screaming beacon through the link at the moment, but she knew the link’s “wavelength” was obscure enough that it should go right past most people of most species. But there were other empaths and telepaths out there — Jack and the Doctor had warned her, frequently . . .  
  
Mostly, the crowd seemed oblivious. Or, if they appeared to notice the other TARDIS crew members, it was based off of visual cues, since they were making a slightly less-obvious spectacle of themselves _that_ way, too. But . . . those two people who looked like gigantic bundles of tentacles with lots of jointed eyestalks were particularly focused, their tentacles were coiling and wreathing in time to the ripples of the link. Unlikely coincidence.  
  
Scattered through the other patrons, Rose could spot a few telltale glassy stares. Across the floor a young lady with foxy features (literally, she even had a short, pointed muzzle) was gazing fixedly at Jack and the Doctor, while her date (a member of the same species, from the look of him) chattered on cluelessly beside her. Rose could see his mouth moving, and his hands gesturing . . . right up until the fox-lady turned on him, and proceeded to snog him breathless before grabbing his hand and dragging him from the room.  
  
Rose laughed silently to herself, her amusement buoyed up by the bright, joyous washes of desire shimmering down the link. It was going to her head like alcohol, and she hoped the music wasn’t going to last too much longer . . .  
  
The music ended just then, to her relief. Jack and the Doctor stopped and stood together for a moment before disengaging, their visible breathing a little faster than the slow tempo of the dance should have accounted for. As if on cue, their heads swiveled in Rose’s direction. She was suddenly the focus of two sets of eyes — one storm-blue, one sea-blue — with a single obvious thought behind them.  
  
Grinning now, she hopped off her barstool and went to meet her men as they strode purposefully towards her.  
  
They moved apart slightly so she could wriggle between them and slip her arms through theirs, Jack on her right, the Doctor on her left.  
  
“I settled up for us,” she told them. “I’m guessing we’re heading back to the TARDIS now?” she continued, cheerfully.  
  
“You guessed right,” Jack told her, voice low and sexy. The Doctor didn’t say anything, but the look on his face was answer enough.  
  
Rose laughed, feeling a little giddy. “Good — if we stayed any longer, we might start a riot, the way you two were going on.”  
  
The Doctor blinked, and then caught her meaning. His expression shaded into dismay, and he began casting embarrassed glances around them.  
  
“Hrm. Didn’t think of that,” he murmured, some of the glow damping down from his portion of the link. “Been spendin’ too much time on Earth, where nobody’s gonna hear us . . .”  
  
Rose giggled at his dismay. “Yeah, y’ really had those tentacle people goin’,” she couldn’t help adding.  
  
Jack, following the directional jerk of her head, looked back over his shoulder, and snickered, still obviously a little high. “Aaaaah,” he said, “They’re luhor. Luhoris are a randy bunch — they probably liked it.”  
  
“An' how would you know?” Rose shot back, amused.  
  
“Weeeeellll,” Jack began, with a glint in his eye that hinted at a rude (was there another type when Jack was involved?) story.  
  
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Time and place, Jack.” Then he grinned, and added, “Right now, that place is the TARDIS. C’mon!” He took off, towing them by their linked arms towards the exit, and Rose and Jack followed him unhesitatingly.  



End file.
